Skip to main content

Use discounts for article processing charges

Published on 21.10.2020
Tampere Universities
Open Access viikko 2020 eng
The best way to make an article openly available without a delay is to publish it in a fully open access journal or in a hybrid journal. There often is an article processing charge (APC) for Open Access publishing. As a corresponding author affiliated with Tampere University you can publish without an APC or by paying a discounted APC. Discounts for APCs also apply to authors affiliated with TAMK or Tays.

FinELib is a consortium of Finnish universities and it negotiates agreements for the Finnish scholarly community. The APC discounts are based on these agreements. Also, the library has directly made agreements with some publishers. There is either a percentual discount of the list price or a free publication of the Open Access article. The following publishers offer APC discounts: American Chemical Society, BioMed Central, MDPI, SAGE, Taylor & Francis and Wiley. There are ongoing negotiations with IEEE, Elsevier, Emerald and Springer. You can monitor the progress and results of these negotiations on FinElib´s webpage: http://finelib.fi/negotiations/ 

You can see the current APC discounts on our Open Access guide. Notice, that some discounts are available only at the beginning of the year because there is a limited number of free articles per organization on national level e.g. IEEE, Emerald and Wiley. 

 
Checklist for corresponding author 

  1. Check our Open Access guide for discounts and benefits regarding specific publishers. 

  1. If you have selected a certain journal, check if it is covered by a discount agreement. Check if the discount is valid throughout the year. 

  1. Read the terms and conditions of the discount and submission instructions carefully.  Check if you need a separate discount code for submission, how to create it or who to contact 

  1. Pay attention to the following factors that affect the discount:  

  • The affiliation of the corresponding author (Tampere University, TAMK or Tays) 

  • Use the tuni-email address when submitting the article 

  • The discount might cover only certain types of articles 

  • If necessary, request a discount code (applies to Wolters/Kluwer oa [at] tuni.fi

  1. If the publisher requires a confirmation of your affiliation (e.g. BioMed Central), contact us.  

  1. Familiarize yourself beforehand with Creative Commons licenses. When you are signing a publishing agreement, you will have to choose a Creative Commons -license. 

  1. Ensure that you have funding for the discounted APC well in advance if the open access option is not free of charge. 

  1. When your article is accepted by the journal, follow the instructions given to you by email by the publisher carefully, otherwise you may not get the discount. 

  1. Note that it is usually not possible to get the discount afterwards. 

This autumn you can apply for support funding for an article processing charge (APC), when you work as a grant holder at Tampere University and your article is accepted for publication 1.9.-31.12.2020. More information about support funding and how to apply for it can be found here: https://libguides.tuni.fi/apcsupportfunding  

Ask more about Open Access publishing and APC: oa [at] tuni.fi (oa[at]tuni[dot]fi)   

Open Access guide and APC: https://libguides.tuni.fi/openaccess/discounts